Family Tree
by briroch
Summary: <html><head></head>This is a response to a Writer's Challenge- a story set in the past/ childhood of one of the characters. A twelve year old Steve struggles with a school project- and much more.</html>


**Disclaimer: **I do not own the characters; I only use them for my own enjoyment and hopefully that of my readers, too.

**A/N: **This is for the fans of Aunt Ruth. After I killed her off in "Cain and Abel" I promised to bring her back in some stories happening at an earlier time.

Dedicated to all Foster parents who do a wonderful job every day.

_**Family Tree**_

"You're not my mother!"

There. He had said it. The boy shot a last furious look at the woman with the grey streaked hair sitting at the table. He turned on his heels and slammed the door shut behind him. All she could hear now was the angry footfall fading in the distance, though his last cutting words still rang in her ears. She hid her face in her hands, trying to get her emotions in check, before one of the other children came in.

This was how her oldest daughter Katie found her. The young woman put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Mom, what's wrong?" she asked with concern.

"Oh, it's nothing, darling; I'm just a bit tired."

Katie couldn't help a hollow laugh escape. "You mean tired of fighting with Stevie?"

Her mother looked up with a watery smile. "I guess so. The boy is taking so long to settle in."

This time Katie's laugh was genuine. "You mean in comparison with the rest of us? How long did it take me to accept you as my mother? Was it two weeks or two days?"

Ruth Keller smiled fondly as she looked at her adopted daughter. "It took me all of two minutes to fall in love with you."

Katie grinned. "That long?" Then she checked the kettle on the stove and without asking threw some teabags in the pot. "Coffee is for chat, but tea is for talk," she quoted her adoptive mother. "And now let's talk and you can tell me all about Stevie."

Ruth sighed. "We were fighting over something stupid, a project for school he won't do. Somehow it got out of hand and he ran off…"

"Nothing new there. What did he say to upset you so much?" Katie knew the woman who had brought her up only too well. A simple fight with a twelve year old wouldn't faze Ruth Keller who had fostered dozens of children.

"I guess it's just me being silly, but when he said that I had no right to tell him what to do, that I was not his mother…" her voice trailed off and Katie could detect the hurt in it.

She laughed. "And that was all? Of course you are not his mother, how can his aunt be his mother?"

The older woman looked at her pensively. "Do you reckon that's it? Is that what's bothering him?"

Katie nodded. "Among other things, but why, of course! You were his aunt first and he remembers you and his mother together."

Ruth looked at her in disbelief. "Was I just too blind to see it?"

"Aw, mom, Steve is just a different case from the rest of us."

Katie was right. Steve was different from her other children. She had known Steve from birth and she had loved him even before he was born; the son of her husband's only brother, and the son of her beloved sister in law who had put her new-born son in Ruth's arms and said_, _"He's yours as much as he is mine and I want you to be his Godmother and look out for him." She swallowed hard. Her brother in law had died when little Stevie was only a toddler and two years ago Steve's mother had passed away, too, leaving Steve in her care. And what could she do for the child, except making him angry and even more stubborn? _Maybe Katie was onto something; maybe Stevie would be better off in a family where there was no baggage, no history. But she loved him so much…_

"Mom!" her oldest daughter's voice brought her back to reality. "Can I remind you how much you wanted him to be angry and scream and let it out when he first came here?"

Both women remembered the silent ten year old child who walked around the house like a pale ghost and politely but firmly rejected all offers of help, all comfort and all company. It was only recently that the withdrawn boy had come out of his shell with a vengeance and not a single day had gone by without a fight with either Ruth or her husband John.

"A delayed reaction?" Ruth spoke out loud what went through her head. "Darling daughter, we certainly didn't send you to college for nothing." She smiled at the pretty young woman, the first girl she had taken into her care when she knew for certain that she would never have children of her own. The first of many…

"Do you reckon he needs more time, more love and understanding?" she asked tentatively.

Katie scoffed. "More love and understanding than you give him already? Get a life, mom. I think the little rascal needs a good talking to and he will get it from me." She smiled and her face lit up with mischief. "Just as well I found you now and not dad. His talking to Stevie would be a bit harsher than what I have in mind." She patted the older woman's back. "I'll have him back in here in no time, so better get those cookies in the oven." She pointed at a forgotten tray of uncooked cookies. "The smell might help to lure him in."

It didn't take Katie long to find the boy. She knew every nook and cranny of the farm and she had hidden up on the hayloft on many occasions, too. She moved a swathe of the sweet smelling hay out of the way and found the boy curled up around the black cat that seemed to be the only creature he was comfortable with. The brown hair was all messed up, the face dusty and tear stained. The momentary flash of anger she had felt, dissipated when she saw how miserable the child was. In the state he was in, Steve looked much younger than his twelve years; he was small for his age and very skinny.

"How did you find me?" he stared at her with hostility. There was more warmth and welcome in the cat's eyes than in the boy's.

"Hi Blackie!" she stretched out her hand so that the cat could sniff it and then she gave the cat's chin a good rub before she addressed the child. "Everybody who grew up here knows about the hayloft."

"Suppose so," he grudgingly admitted.

Katie let some time pass and hoped for Steve to make the first move.

"Did she send you to get me?" he eventually asked.

"Who do you mean with _she_?" Katie asked innocently. "You mean, your aunt Ruth?"

The child nodded and buried his dirty face in the cat's soft fur. "I'm not going back!" The sentence came out muffled, but nevertheless defiant.

"So you intend to spend the rest of your life in the hayloft? I'm sure Blackie will bring you the odd mouse, or maybe you will develop a taste for hay."

Steve sighed. He had to admit that he hadn't fully thought out his plan of action. He squinted at Katie. He had always liked her, but that was before… He swallowed back the bitter tears. Before… when he still liked people, but now?

"I guess you have come to tell me how lucky I am." The tears were gone, but the defiance was back.

"No, actually that thought never crossed my mind. I came to tell you how lucky _I_ am and Laura and Martin and Gina and…"

Surprised by the way the conversation was going the boy looked up at her.

"You know, I'm so lucky your aunt and uncle picked me to be their daughter."

He remained silent for a long time, then he asked in a small voice. "Don't you miss your own momma?"

"Pipsqueak, my own momma left me on the steps of a church when I was born. How could I miss her?" she said matter-of-factly.

"Oh, I didn't know. I thought everyone was here because their parents died…" his voice trailed off.

"Francey's like me, her mother didn't want her either. Laura's momma actually died when she was born, but Martin, well, Martin's parents are both alive and kicking. They kicked him around a lot and I can tell you he was mighty glad to come to a place where people were good to him and where he got plenty to eat and clean clothes."

Again, the boy looked at her with wide eyes. "I didn't know."

"Why, of course not. That's why we all count ourselves lucky that we landed here. Not all foster homes are as nice as the farm here and not all foster parents are as nice as Ruth and John."

The boy was quiet, stroking the cat's back.

"I suppose it's different for you." Katie tried to find a way to the child's heart. "You remember a nice mom and of course you miss her."

He didn't say a word, but Katie detected an ever so slight nod. All she wanted to do was to pull the miserable child in her arms and hug him, but she remembered how averse Steve's reactions to all physical contact had been since his mother died, so she just put her hand on his bony shoulder instead. She felt the muscles tense, but he didn't move away from her.

"Did you never wonder why?" he asked at last.

"Why people die? Why mothers don't want their babies? Sure, everybody does, but I don't think we'll ever find an answer."

She thought back to when she was twelve and remembered the first time she ever really wanted to know about her birth mother. A school project, Miss Harmon's dreaded family tree… Was that what was at the bottom of Steve's dismay, too? She remembered the buff coloured folder on the kitchen table. Maybe!

"As I said, I never knew my mother, so I never missed her. There was one time though when I really got upset over not having a biological family, you know. I had to do a project for Miss Harmon, a family tree and I didn't have a clue where to put myself." She watched the boy for a reaction out of the corner of her eyes. He stared at her in wide-eyed disbelieve. Obviously Miss Harmon hadn't come up with new projects in the last fifteen years. "Although John and Ruth were the only family I ever had, my true family, I didn't know where to put myself. I couldn't really be a branch, could I?"

Steve listened attentively. "What did you do? Not hand in the project? Did you get into trouble?"

"I did hand it in. I found a solution. I put myself and my brothers and sisters in little nests that I put around Ruth and John's branches, so it looked like leaves on a tree. I found that pretty clever."

The boy nodded in awe. "That was really clever. But…"

She looked at him with a smile. "Pipsqueak, what's your problem? Your family tree is the same as your aunt and uncle's. You just come from a different branch of the family, so there is no need to draw little nests or anything like that."

"You reckon?" he still sounded a bit doubtful.

"When is the project due?" she asked.

"Tomorrow," was the crestfallen answer.

"Well then we'd better get cracking. We'll go back in and after we have sampled some of the cookies that are baking in the oven right now, I'll give you a hand with the family tree and I'm sure mom will know a lot more about it than I do."

The brown-haired head that had been raised with some hope, sunk again. "Not after what I said to her, she won't help me."

Katie giggled. "Consider her your aunt or your mom or just plain Ruth, but you can be sure of one thing - she'll always forgive you, whereas I wouldn't be so sure about Miss Harmon."

She held out her hand to pull him up, he accepted it and for a split second squeezed hers. While Katie had no illusions that this was the end of their problems with Steve, it was but a first step, the first on a long road to recovery.


End file.
